February 20, 2012 | 12:53 pm

The Verge reports that Barnes & Noble is placing a low-end version of its Nook Tablet in Wal-Mart, launching at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, February 22nd. The device will have only 8 GB of RAM, the same as the Kindle Fire, and is expected to launch at a lower price than the current 16GB model’s $249. (The most obvious price point is, of course, the Kindle Fire’s $199, but B&N and Wal-Mart could surprise us.)

Of course, to call it an 8 GB model is something of a misnomer. Unlike the Kindle Fire, it will probably reserve all but 1 GB of available memory for B&N content, as the 16 GB model does. However, also unlike the Fire, it should still sport a 32GB microSD card expansion slot, which can be used for as much content as the reader wants to store there.

It’s long been known that Wal-Mart likes to talk manufacturers into producing low-end versions of their products which Wal-Mart can sell for less. It’s not surprising that they’d do the same with the most popular non-Amazon 8” tablet. It remains to be seen whether this price break will be enough to let B&N compete with the more popular Kindle Fire.